


No. 8s on Christmas Eve

by ncruuk



Series: Festive Season Three - shot [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 03:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5523998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncruuk/pseuds/ncruuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been the sort of crisis that makes Kate Stewart forget what day it was, in the conventional sense rather than because of a passing Time Lord or a necessary memory wipe.  It's also been the sort of crisis where science ended up sharing the lead with the military.   But the crisis is over, the situation resolved, and Kate's just got home.  The question is, where's her girfriend?  And what day is it?</p><p>[Kate/Osgood Christmas story.  Set in the same 'headcanon universe' as my other story 'Code Word Classified: Gallifrey' - it's not necessary to have read that story at all (this is a total standalone) but they will complement each other.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	No. 8s on Christmas Eve

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't start life as a Christmas fic, in fact, it started life as something quite different (see end note for explanation as to what) but it evolved and became what you are about to read.
> 
> Thank you darklioness82 for the sounding board chats, this wouldn't be this without you!

“Thank you Jenkins.”

 

“Ma’am.”  With a respectful nod and touch to his cap, the experienced, all seeing but never talking UNIT driver waited by the car until Kate Stewart had crossed the driveway and punched in the keycode to unlock her front door.  As expected, once she was across the doorstep, she turned and waved for him to go, grateful that he waited, but always concerned he got home too.

 

Locking the front door behind her, Kate took in the little hints and clues that told her that, while she had been caught up with the fallout from last week’s ‘adventure’ for 72 hours straight, her girlfriend had been able to get away from the situation ahead of her.

 

Relying on the soft light that was coming from the lamp on the hall table, Kate briefly looked at the neat stack of post (three estate agents wanting to help her sell her house and the latest reminder about her tax return) which was propped up against a crystal vase containing a few sprigs of mistletoe complete with cream-white berries and some shiny green holly, both of which she recognised as being cut from the garden.  Teasing one stem out from the vase, she continued on into the kitchen, which was being illuminated by the soft, flickering light from the big, heavy cream candles she kept in big glass bowls on the window sill and dresser.  Holding the stem in her fingers, enjoying the delicate, almost warm feel of it, such a contrast to the coldness of the gun or radio that had been in her hand for most of the week, she smiled when she saw a plate on the kitchen table.

 

Reading the post-it note, she followed the instructions she’d been left and obediently ate the cheese sandwich, enjoying the soft but slight chewiness of the bread crusts which she knew meant the bread had been baked that morning by the baker on the nearby High Street, no doubt one of his last loaves of the year.  Pulling a slight face at the glass of milk that was sat next to the plate, but knowing better than to ignore it, she downed the drink quickly, pleased when it turned out the milk was still chilled and the glass damp with condensation - it didn’t matter how cold she was, anything other than chilled, almost icy milk had never appealed.

 

Checking that the back door was locked and bolted, she blew out the candles, before, still carrying the stem, she returned to the hall.  Double checking she’d locked the front door behind her, she turned out the hall lamp and, mainly from instinct but helped by the glow of light spilling out from her study, climbed the stairs to the first floor landing and headed into the light, intending to turn it off and continue on to bed.  Her plans changed however when, on stepping into her study, she saw that the computer was on and there was a large brandy balloon placed carefully next to a plate containing a mince pie and a piece of carrot, a generous measure of brandy in it.

 

Sitting down in her desk chair, Kate reached for the glass, accidentally moving the mouse in the process.  Distracted by the sudden brightness of the monitor screen ‘waking up’, she automatically went for her glasses which, since she was still wearing the military fatigues she’d been forced into for the last 3 days, were inside the flap pocket on her chest, where she had become accustomed to keeping them.  Glasses on, stem still held gently in her left hand, she once more reached for the glass of brandy as she read her next set of ‘instructions’.

 

_ Don’t feel guilty - I know you need time to unwind.  Enjoy the brandy, write their cards and wrap their presents.  Play some music, I’ve set it up with something suitable… _

 

Seeing the music system remote sitting next to the computer keyboard, Kate picked it up and pressed play, instinctively smiling as she heard the familiar festive sounds of unaccompanied treble voices soaring as they sang the beginnings of Silent Night, before the sound of the accompanying organ quietly filled the room.  Closing her eyes, Kate allowed herself to notice the tightness in her shoulders, the stiffness in her neck and the general ache from physical exertion settling over her limbs.  Recalling long forgotten school games lessons, she embarked on a haphazard series of shoulder circles and assorted head movements that probably had no physical benefit whatsoever but made her feel better.  After a couple of minutes however, the desire to wrap Gordy and Max’s presents, write their cards and generally complete her albeit minimal Christmas preparations won out, but not before she’d nudged the computer mouse, deliberately this time, in order to check the computer’s clock, which also told her…

 

“It’s Christmas Eve…” as she realised that, she watched the digital clock in the corner of the screen silently change from 23:59 to 00:00, “...Christmas Day…” she corrected, only to take another thoughtful sip of her brandy as she tried to work out how she’d managed to lose a day.  That was the problem with UNIT - if the ‘crisis of the week’ wasn’t the Doctor wiping your memory or changing time (and fortunately she could be totally confident neither had occurred this week) it involved endless hours in windowless rooms negotiating or underground bunkers surrounded by gung-ho military types (this week’s ‘crisis du jour’, hence her change of outfit), two environments in which it was easier to lose track of time in the conventional sense of knowing what day of the week it was.  Suddenly, the plate of food alongside her drink make more sense and, with a chuckle at her girlfriend’s sense of humour, set about completing her now urgent Christmas wrapping, occasionally pausing to have another bite of carrot or mince pie.

 

Taking the occasional sip of her brandy as she worked, Kate made quick, neat progress and had soon transformed the four boxes she’d kept safely stowed in her bottom desk drawer into smartly wrapped presents for both of her boys.  Smiling wryly, she shook her head and mentally told herself off - Gordy and Max were men, not boys.  Gone were the days of wrapping up football shirts and sophisticated Lego kits that would see both of them disappear to one or other of their rooms for most of Boxing Day, not that she had minded particularly, generally being just relieved to have survived the day with everyone’s humour intact.  This year her wrapping was relatively straightforward as the cufflinks (for Gordy, because he kept losing them) and a fountain pen (for Max, whose handwriting was always illegible if he was using a biro) were much easier to wrap than fishing rods (2002, her father’s idea) or a drum kit (2006, another of her father’s ideas, and thank heavens for a shed they’d used as a den).  Hopefully the engraved compass (with UNIT insignia on one side and his late father’s regimental one on the other) would serve Max well despite this being the age of GPS, and maybe his grandfather’s pocket watch, which they’d finally managed to get repaired and working once more (she definitely owed Osgood some spontaneous spoiling for that help), maybe it would finally be the timepiece that encouraged her oftentimes wayward son to remember to turn up to places on time: well, a mother could hope.

 

Putting the wrapped presents to one side, Kate took up her own fountain pen and wrote the Christmas cards for the two most important men in her life: one she’d cared for since she’d given birth to him and one she’d adopted as a quiet, perplexed fourteen year old who had had to cope with the cruelest of bad luck as his father was killed by an IED in Afghanistan just hours after his mother had been put in intensive care following a car crash at home in England.  That first Christmas when it had been the three of them had been tough but over the subsequent months and years, Gordy, his best friend Max and Kate had become an unconventional family of three who had their fights (to this day she had no idea if Gordy got that tattoo when he turned eighteen like he threatened), surprises (her birthday the year a seventeen year old Max had asked if she minded him calling her ‘Mum’) and ordinary wet Sundays in October when they struggled to stay awake after a lunch time roast with ‘all of everything’ as Gordy used to call it.

 

Opening the bottom drawer of her desk, Kate carefully extracted the neatly gift-wrapped box that contained her ‘public’ present to her girlfriend and studied it critically.  It hadn’t been her intention to have the jumper she’d had made so...sterilely gift-wrapped (although she couldn’t fault its elegance), but Max had been so pleased that he’d remembered to pick it up when he’d been ‘over that side of town’ collecting his new uniform and proud of thinking to get it ‘professionally’ wrapped as he’d described it, that although she had had  the intention to re-wrap it, she'd not yet had the heart to.  Now, with Christmas morning technically already upon her, Kate knew that she didn’t want to interfere with the beautifully finished parcel: her girlfriend wouldn’t notice the ‘shop-wrapping’ and she’d enjoy her adopted son’s reaction when he recognised the wrapping...

 

Placing Osgood’s parcel next to the ones for her sons, Kate turned off her monitor and stood up, unable to resist a careful stretch, before crossing to the bookcase.  There, on the shelf that sat just above her eyeline, hidden effectively in plain view, was a small brown leather notebook, the cover worked soft and warm from use.  Running her fingertips over the cover, she opened it to the first page and once again checked that yes, this was the correct one.  Carefully, she put the notebook in her trouser pocket, momentarily surprised at how easily it fitted in there before smiling in amusement when she remembered what she was wearing.  Taking advantage of the fact that she had two free hands instead of the expected one, she returned to her desk and picked up her brandy and the berry-laden foliage.  With one final glance around her study to satisfy herself that all was in order, she turned off the light and set off up the next flight of stairs, hoping to find her lover still awake.

  
  


 

Sitting up in bed, Osgood smiled as she turned the page of the Christmas poetry anthology, absently moving the fluffy white pom-pom that adorned the end of her Santa hat so it no longer bashed her on the nose.  Turning the page again quickly (she loved the poems of T.S. Eliot but never felt right reading the Journey of the Magi before Christmas), she failed to notice the tall, khaki-clad blonde leaning on the doorframe.

 

“If I’d known Santa was visiting, I wouldn’t have finished the mince pie…”  Not expecting anyone, Osgood reacted to the sound before she had identified it, resulting in the hard-backed anthology being slammed shut around her index finger, biting her tongue as she yelped in surprise and the pom-pom swinging round and boffing her on the nose again.  It therefore wasn’t much of a surprise to Kate, who had realised the error of her spontaneity almost immediately, that her girlfriend soon began to start wheezing.  Crossing their bedroom quickly, but not before taking care to shut their door in case her sons were already home, Kate sat down on the bed and carefully helped her girlfriend to sit back against her.  Held in a loose embrace, their fingers entangled in Osgood’s lap, Kate’s chin resting on her shoulder, Osgood lent back against her girlfriend and shut her eyes, focussing on the reassuring presence and sound of Kate as she started to talk...

 

“I’ve got you…” encouraged Kate, knowing that her girlfriend’s instincts to curl forwards and take short, shallow breaths had to be discouraged, “...nice and tall…” she continued, making an effort to keep her own breaths deep, even and audible, “...deep slow breaths…” Whilst she held Osgood against her chest, she finally managed to kick her stubborn boots off, enabling her to ease further onto the bed, making it less of a contortion for her and easier for Osgood to feel Kate’s own deep breaths, “...I’m sorry…” another breath, “...I hadn’t meant to startle you…” she added, only for Osgood, whose breathing was improving but hadn’t yet regained the power of speech, to shake her head in disagreement, forgetting that she still had her Santa hat on. “...pfft... “ Kate had to try and blow the fluffy pom-pom away from her mouth, “...it’s just your hat…” she explained, sensing Osgood trying to turn around, her curiosity in the world returning faster than her lung control, “...stay still…” chided Kate gently, resting her chin on her girlfriend’s shoulder again, making it harder for the curious brunette to twist round, “...the pom-pom tickles…” she explained, listening for any indications that the few wheezes Osgood had surprised herself into having were actually triggering a full asthma attack.  “You were reading Christmas poems?” she asked after a couple of calm, steady breaths that her girlfriend appeared to have few issues matching, enabling her to relax her position slightly and shift from purely therapeutic to one that might almost be comfortable for both of them.

 

“Yes…” Osgood’s voice was thin as she still needed to concentrate on breathing, which was getting easier with each breath, “...I found an anthology on the shelves....”

 

“I’d read from it to Gordy…” explained Kate, pacing her words carefully so she didn’t disrupt the rhythm of her breathing, “...as he got older… he’d read some to me… then Max came and…”

 

“...it wasn’t cool?” guessed Osgood, her voice stronger, knowing about the Christmas tradition.

 

“You know?” asked Kate, relaxing her hold on Osgood a little more now her girlfriend’s breathing was improved, but unwilling to move away, content to enjoy the embrace as long as neither of their backs gave out.

 

“Gordy explained it to me earlier… when I found the book.”

 

“He’s arrived?” Kate couldn’t stop the furtive glance back towards their, fortunately, closed bedroom door.

 

“With Max, just before supper...  They brought take-out… I don’t think they expected to see me.”

 

“But they…” Osgood could feel Kate’s frown and, relieved her breathing was back to near normal, interrupted her girlfriend.

 

“Were really happy to see me.  They’d, or rather Max, had thought I’d still be at the ‘thing’,” she said, reusing the vague descriptor Max had used when he’d remembered just in time that Gordy was probably best left in the dark about what had kept most of UNIT occupied for the last week or so.

 

“Should I go…” Kate was conflicted - her maternal instincts were kicking in, wanting to go and look in on her ‘boys’ who were grown men, but that would mean moving, and moving meant letting go of her girlfriend who, now she wasn’t focussed on helping breathe, she was now very conscious of.

 

“They said they’d see us in the kitchen, at 11… Max mentioned something about waffles?” Osgood blushed as she remembered what else the younger UNIT man had mentioned, fortunately when Gordy was out of earshot

 

“My sons only selectively grow up it seems,” groaned Kate, prompting Osgood to pull herself out of Kate’s embrace and turn around so she could properly look at her for the first time that evening, her raised eyebrow pushing Kate into a fuller explanation.  “Even after they’d grown out of Santa, and decorating the Christmas tree and all the other bits and pieces we did together as Christmas habits over the years, they still hope I’ll make waffles for brunch on Christmas Day.”

 

“With bacon, blueberries and banana?”

 

“They told you?”

 

“No, but that explains why Max brought take-out and Gordy brought groceries.”  Osgood saw Kate’s face brighten, correctly understanding that Kate’s groan had been because she’d lost track of the days and thought she didn’t have the ingredients for the breakfast, not that she objected to making waffles.  “Maybe your sons have grown up after all?” she teased, tapping her sheepish looking girlfriend on her nose, who made a playful attempt to catch the offending finger in her teeth, only to sober slightly as she asked sympathetically, “you hadn’t realised it was Christmas, had you?”

 

“I hadn’t realised I only just got home before Christmas Day until I was in the study,” explained Kate sombrely, all earlier teasing momentarily forgotten as instead she found herself reflecting on the events of the week, the adrenalin buzz almost fully exhausted, “thank you, for the sandwich, and the brandy…” she turned away from Osgood and stood up, crossing the room back to the door (which she made absolutely certain she’d closed) and retrieved the brandy balloon and berry-laden stem from where she’d instinctively put them down when she’d heard her girlfriend’s breathing deteriorate.  Turning back to the bed, she stopped, glass in one hand and stem held loosely in the fingers of the other, trying to work out what was causing her girlfriend to look quite so...different to anything she could remember seeing before.  “Os?  You ok?”

 

“Your clothes…” muttered Osgood, feeling her face glow as she realised what she’d said aloud.

 

“Hideous, aren’t they?” laughed Kate, glad it was nothing more serious than slight surprise at seeing sporting her rarely worn ‘in-field’ uniform that was officially known as ‘No. 8 Temperate Combat Dress’,  “but that’s the protocol,” she shrugged dismissively, putting the glass and piece of greenery down on her bedside table, preparing to get ready for bed, “though it did make it easier to get the boys from Hereford to listen to me,” she explained, alluding to the elite troops from the Special Air Squadron and a few other bits of the British Army she’d had to ‘borrow’ when it became clear that they needed a little more bite and bark than the core UNIT troops could provide.  Being a Brigadier, even if it was an honorary commission, had its uses, although she did feel a fraud answering to the title that still had her wanting to look over her shoulder for her father…. at least her salute was passable, thanks to his and Max’s lessons.

 

“Don’t…” Osgood’s near whisper caused Kate’s hands to still, delaying undoing the first button on her khaki combat jacket whilst she considered her girlfriend’s perplexing reaction.

 

“Os?”  Even more confusing, rather than explaining, her girlfriend blushed a very bright red, almost matching her forgotten hat and abstractly waved a hand in a gesture Kate correctly interpreted as asking her to stop undressing.  Confused, she nevertheless complied, dropping her hands from her chest and, uncertain what else to do with them, she put them in her trouser pockets, which only seemed to make Osgood behave even more oddly, as Kate normally associated the expression she was now seeing as being...wait...could it… Experimentally, she rocked on her heels, hunching her shoulders up round her ears in what she knew her sons called her ‘we’re for it’ gesture, although she’d subsequently found it also worked rather well on invading aliens and the Doctor’s companions.  However on her girlfriend, she’d come to realise it had a rather different effect…

 

“You like the uniform?” she asked, realising she’d not quite got it right when she saw Osgood simultaneously blush and shake her head.  “Wait, you like me wearing the uniform?” Watching Osgood’s reactions carefully, she realised she was still not quite fully correct.  Thinking quickly, analysing what she’d said and what her options were (science leads, always), she tried again with what she was confident was the right question.  “This is how I discover you’ve got a thing for women in uniform?”

 

“No…” Kate might have believed her girlfriend if she’d not been blushing and staring at the previously forgotten anthology in her lap, prompting another analytical iteration by the blonde.

 

“This is how we discover you’ve got a thing for me in uniform?” In contrast to her previous questions, which had been asked with a wry smile on her face and humour in her voice, this question was asked softly, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she shyly waited for the answer.

 

“I think so,” agreed Osgood cautiously, looking up from her lap and trying to objectively assess the situation, which basically meant look intently at her girlfriend for a few moments, “although…” she canted her head onto one side, causing the pom-pom to remind her of her hat’s existence and repositioned her glasses.

 

“Yes?” Kate had near limitless patience when it came to scientific research, Osgood and anything involving her children apart from watching them play rugby in the rain.  But at almost 1am on Christmas Day when her girlfriend was in their bed and she was stuck at the foot of it fully dressed and acutely conscious she hadn’t had a shower for 68 hours, well, she didn’t think it was unreasonable to be approaching a newly discovered limit.

 

“I know I’ve got a thing for you,” admitted Osgood, her scientist’s intense scrutiny disappearing, to be immediately replaced by an equally intense but rather more emotionally charged look that spoke of longing and loving, “come to bed?”

 

“I should to shower…” protested Kate weakly, wanting nothing more than to greet her lover properly and get out of her clothes however, as she pulled once more at the front of her combat jacket, she became suddenly conscious of how grimy she felt, “and…” she continued, tasting the faint smell of gunfire and diesel in the air around her, “...I smell smokey.  I need to shower,” she amended knowing as, reluctantly, did her girlfriend, that there was no way she would come to bed now she’d identified herself as potentially being covered with one of her girlfriend’s known allergens.  Taking step back from the bed, she added, “I’ll be quick,” before, with a fleeting wink and a reassuring grin, turned on her heel and, hands still in her pockets, strode quickly to the en suite bathroom where Osgood soon heard the soft thumps of various bits of military uniform hitting the floor, signalling that finally, this Brigadier was well and truly ‘off duty’.

 

 

Moments later, the sound of the shower spurred Osgood into action.  Putting the poetry anthology on her bedside table, she quickly slipped from the bed and went into the en suite, determinedly keeping her gaze locked on the heap of khaki clothing that was on the floor and absolutely not looking up to her right, where she would see the reflection of her showering girlfriend in the rapidly steaming mirror, nor looking up to her left, where she would see quite literally more of Kate than she’d seen in days.  Instead, she snatched up the pile of clothing and, eyes staying focussed on anything but temptation, she returned to their bedroom.  

 

Dumping the clothes on the bench seat they had at the end of the bed, and taking care to not breathe too deeply (she didn’t think she could get an asthma attack from the residual particulates trapped on Kate’s clothes, but she wasn’t interested in conducting an experiment right now), she quickly worked her way through the clothes, making sure that the pockets were emptied and that all the bits and pieces that Kate needed to keep were put to one side.  It was a familiar routine that she’d grown up watching her mother do for her father, before, when she was a bit older, occasionally doing it herself, although this was the first time she’d ever done it for her lover, and on this particular design of uniform, but then, realised Osgood, doing some quick mental arithmetic, it had probably been close to 30 years since she’d done this for her father.  

 

Despite the uniform changes, her hands worked on instinct and soon she had sorted the big messy heap into two neat piles - the larger pile now contained the neatly folded garments which currently Osgood had no idea what to do with, and the smaller pile, which she set about sorting further.  By the time she heard the shower shut off, she had managed to sort this second pile into three groups of items.  The first, which contained the various rank insignia and UNIT patches, as well as the red UNIT beret (which she’d found stuffed in a jacket pocket), were Kate’s equivalent of what her father always called the ‘important’ bits of the uniform that were moved from uniform to uniform.  These she picked up and moved to the top of the dresser where they would be safe until Kate put them away properly, which would actually mean taking them back to the Tower, along with the worn uniform for cleaning and returning to storage until the next crisis. (When Max decided to follow in his late father’s footsteps and join the army, Kate had been completely supportive but sworn she would never wash khaki, a promise she hadn’t broken yet).  The second pile, which were the ‘non-uniform’ items Kate had worn under her uniform (and so were decidedly not khaki, although they were matching), Osgood had put in the laundry hamper that was next to the dresser.  The third pile, which contained the contents of Kate’s pockets, she scooped up and put on Kate’s bedside table, knowing that neither her girlfriend’s phone or reading glasses would improve from laundering.  Next to them, she placed the small brown leather notebook that she’d found in a trouser pocket, having first moved the mistletoe stem that Kate had picked from the small arrangement of mistletoe and holly she’d put in the hall that afternoon.  

 

Hearing the hairdryer start, suggesting that Kate was being true to her word and completing her shower quickly, Osgood clambered over the bed to her side and, with a final glance at the mistletoe, removed the extra layers she’d been wearing whilst she sat up reading and slipped under the bed covers, her now forgotten Santa hat still in place.

 

“Os?” called out Kate, switching off the hairdryer.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Did you grab my clothes?” Standing behind the bathroom door, satisfied that she was now clean and dry, Kate returned the bath towel she’d been using to the towel rail and pulled on the silk robe she’d evidently left hanging in the bathroom whenever it was that she’d last been home.

 

“Yes, and sorted them.”  Osgood sensed rather than saw Kate’s frown, so continued, “I emptied the pockets and kept the bits of the uniform you need to keep.  The rest’s either in the laundry hamper or on the bench.”

 

“Thanks.” Kate appeared in the bathroom doorway, “you’ve done that before?” she asked carefully, trying so hard not to imagine her girlfriend in the arms of another that she almost missed Osgood’s answering explanation,

 

“My father…come to bed,” repeated Osgood, reaching out with the hand that her head wasn’t propped up on to pat the bed next to her, correctly reading Kate’s embarrassed look, “you’re clearly in need of sleep if you were forgetting my father.  So?”

 

“So what?” asked Kate, catching her lower lip in her teeth as she stood by the side of the bed, trying to work out the answer to Osgood’s question whilst mentally kicking herself for forgetting about Tom Osgood.

 

“So, since you forgot about Dad, what was she like?  The evil uniform-wearing ex you were clearly thinking I’d sorted laundry for.”

 

“Hard to say,” confessed Kate, realising that there were no pyjamas under her pillow.

 

“Oh?” Osgood tried to sound casually disinterested as she waited to see how her girlfriend would react to the lack of sleepwear, although she was eager to know what Kate’s imagination had conjured up in that split second of anxiety.

 

“All I could see was the beret…” Anything else that Kate might have said was completely missed by Osgood as it was accompanied by a virtually soundless but nevertheless brain-deafening display as, fed up of being stood up in her bedroom, Kate had let the robe tumble to the floor and slid between the covers.

 

“Hi…” At least, that’s what Osgood hoped she was saying, although she suspected that with her surprisingly dry mouth it probably sounded more like a sea lion whistling with a cold.

 

“Hello…”  Kate took a moment to get comfortable, mirroring her girlfriend’s position, the bed clothes trapped neatly under her free arm.

 

“Hello…” Now that Kate was finally in bed and she had definitive evidence that Kate wasn’t sharing their bed with any pyjamas, all the patience and restraint that she’d managed to have earlier in the evening disappeared, replaced with an urgent need to lean over and...fail to kiss her retreating girlfriend.  Confused, Osgood held herself awkwardly balanced, halfway between lying on her side of the bed and on top of Kate, “...what…”

 

“That….” Kate reached towards her girlfriend as she ground out the words through evidently gritted teeth, “...bloody…” and snatched at Osgood’s head, “...hat!” she finished, grabbing the Santa hat by its pom-pom and whisking it off her girlfriend’s head and tossing it in the general direction of the foot of the bed.

 

“Better?” asked Osgood, amused at her lover’s antics as well as being rather relieved that not having a ‘thing’ for Santa was Kate’s only issue with her, and even that had been easily corrected.

 

“Much… do I need the mistletoe?” She really hoped she didn’t, as Kate wasn’t sure she could bend her arm through enough of a contortion to reach for it, although it would be easier now she was lying on her back…

 

“I think we can manage without…” suggested Osgood quietly, her lips mere millimetres from Kate’s by the time she’d finished speaking as, progress no longer impeded by smokey Combat Uniforms or Santa hats, she’d finally managed to get an ‘off-duty’ Kate within kissing range.  “...Happy Christmas…”

 

“Happy Christmas…” agreed Kate, threading her fingers through chestnut brown hair and meeting Osgood’s lips with her own… it was, finally, in the very early hours of Christmas Day morning, beginning to feel a lot like Christmas…. 

**Author's Note:**

> This actually started life as a 'what if Kate doesn't know about Osgood having a 'thing for women in uniform'... only it took on something of a life of its own.
> 
> For those of you who spotted what felt like a festive red herring and are now feeling like you've been left with a loose end, please don't get too cross with me - there is a 'continuation' piece that will be posted soon (certainly in 2015) but I didn't want to waste the opportunity of posting a Christmas Eve night fic on, well, in my timezone, Christmas Eve night!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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